mopping

Pluralmoppings

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The process of cleaning a floor or other surface with a mop.

   A quick mopping of the hallway removed the muddy footprints.

   The janitor's nightly mopping left the corridor tiles gleaming.

   Similarcleaning, wash

   Note

   Though it names an activity, this noun is countable: each pass with the mop is a mopping, and the passes add up. In Evelyn I. Funda's Weeds: A Farm Daughter's Lament (2013), nail heads "popped up and rusted from repeated moppings," and the plural turns routine cleaning into years of wear. An article or a modifier usually marks a single occasion: a quick mopping, the nightly mopping.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of mop.

   The staff were mopping the lobby when the first guests arrived.

   Mopping the wet deck each morning, the sailor kept it spotless.

   Note

   The -ing form carries every sense of the verb, not only the cleaning one. Transitive mopping takes an object (mopping the deck). The intransitive use belongs to the face: making a wry expression with the mouth. In US slang it can also mean shoplifting, so context matters. The p doubles before -ing, and the same spelling serves as the noun for the cleaning itself.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A coat of molten asphalt applied to a roof or similar surface.

   The contractor specified three moppings of asphalt between the felt layers.

   A fresh mopping bonded the new membrane firmly to the deck.

   Similarcoat, layer

   Note

   Roofers borrowed the motion of the mop. Hot asphalt is spread across a roof much as water is spread across a floor, and each coat counts as one mopping. In built-up roofing these coats bond the plies of felt to one another, so a specification can call for several moppings between layers. Like the cleaning noun, it counts individual applications.

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